The Unfair Pair
"Thank you for watching Angelica," Charlotte said to Howard and Betty.
"I just hope this time the babies actually try and play with me," Angelica said with a pout, causing Betty to wince; the twins were at that age where they should be playing well with others but Betty and Howard had noticed that they often ignored others and focused on just each other. Even the last time they'd visited Tommy they had left the little guy out of most of their games.
As Angelica began to walk past Betty she reached down and stop her from continuing. "Hey, I was thinkin' instead of ya playin' with the pups you and I could spend some time together."
"What do you mean, Mrs. Deville?" Angelica asked, confused.
"Well, I'm the assistant coach for the high school soccer team and I know you are getting to the age where you can do some team sports. I have the net and stuff set up out back… how about I show you some fun things you can do with a soccer ball?"
"What kind of stuff?" Angelica asked.
"How to kick it into the net, how to dribble it on your knees, even how to bounce it on your noodle without it hurtin'!"
Angelica considered that before nodding. She had been planning to just color and listen to her cassettes because honestly the babies weren't that fun to play with when they ignored her, but that sounded even better! She liked learning new things!
Later on Howard let Phil and Lil play outside, which is when they finally noticed Angelica and their mommy were playing with a white and black ball. Angelica was running around kicking it into the net and the twins decided that looked like a ton of fun. With dual giggles the two rushed after the ball, grabbing it and tossing it to each other.
"Hey, I was playing with that!" Angelica complained but the twins were so focused on playing with each other they just ignored her… until their mommy walked up and took the ball away.
"Sorry pups but Angelica's right. She was playing with that and if you can't share with her then you'll need to find something else."
Phil and Lil didn't like that and tried a few times to get the ball but each time their mommy thwarted them and in the end after they threw a tantrum each their daddy took them to take an early nap.
"Phil…" Lil said, lying in her crib, "you don't think mommy's right and we don't share with others, do you?"
"No!" Phil declared. "We share all the time! You and I play with our Reptar dolls and our blocks…"
"But what about with everyone else? When we play at Tommy's house we take stuff to play on our own."
"Yeah but… that's different."
"Why?"
Phil didn't have an answer.